Convoys targeted in Iraq attacks

The car bomb attack on a US convoy brought down power lines

At least 10 people were killed when US and Iraqi convoys were attacked by insurgents near Baghdad, officials say.

One Iraqi died and at least five civilians and three US soldiers were wounded when a car bomb detonated near the US convoy on the airport road.

Later, at least nine Iraqi National Guard soldiers were killed and 20 wounded near the Abu Ghraib prison, on Baghdad's western outskirts.

Meanwhile, six Iraqis have been held over the downing of a helicopter.

The commercial helicopter was shot down just north of Baghdad earlier in the week, killing six US security contractors, three Bulgarian crew members and two Fijian security guards.

Insurgents have increased their attacks across Iraq in recent weeks.

The US convoy was targeted by a suicide bomber on a busy road that connects Baghdad with the motorway to the airport on Saturday.

The force of the explosion knocked down power lines and destroyed a military vehicle and two civilian vehicles, the US military said in a statement.

Further attacks

In the second incident, a convoy carrying the Iraqi National Guard was hit by a bomb attack, said police.

Some of the wounded were reportedly taken to hospital at the nearby Abu Ghraib prison, which was at the centre of last year's US prisoner abuse scandal.

Elsewhere in Iraq:

• two civilians - one a 10-year-old girl - are reportedly killed and several others wounded in two bomb attacks in Baquba, north of Baghdad. Police said one bomb was placed outside the home of a former official, who was assassinated a few months ago.

• a car explodes near a Shia mosque in the southern port of Basra, killing the two people in the vehicle and injuring others nearby. Police said they were investigating whether it was a suicide attack.

• an Associated Press Television News cameraman, Saleh Ibrahim, is killed covering a battle in the northern city of Mosul.

The US military said on Saturday six Iraqi men had been arrested over the shooting down of the commercial helicopter after a tip-off from a civilian.

Bomb-making material was also seized during two separate raids, the military said.

Attacks by insurgents have increased recently following a lull after the 30 January elections and amid delays in forming a new government.

At least nine people were killed and more than 20 wounded in a car bomb attack outside a Shia mosque in east Baghdad on Friday.

A day earlier, the outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi escaped unhurt after a suicide bomber blew up a car near his convoy in Baghdad, killing two police officers.

On Wednesday, the bodies of 19 Iraqi fishermen were found at a football stadium in Haditha, north of Baghdad.

They appeared to have been lined up against a wall and shot, eyewitnesses said.